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Taijuan Walker’s AAA Debut: Now it Can Be Told

Due to computer issues, I wasn’t able to get this up yesterday, but that just allows me to harvest quotes and play off all of the great posts and articles about Walker’s outing, while the off-day means I’m not obligated to bang out a gamethread instead. So hey, instead of talking about the rising frustration about the offense, Felix’s lack of support, the bullpen’s bizarre collapse or in-fighting about Raul Ibanez, let’s focus on the fact that the M’s have one of the best pitching prospects in minor league baseball.

I say this as someone who’s been a bit more lukewarm on Danny Hultzen than his numbers might lead you to believe.* Hultzen’s older, has an extremely high floor, and will pitch in Seattle fairly soon, but Walker’s potential and poise make him the superior prospect. Everyone mentions how raw he was coming out of high school as a two-sport star. He had a live arm, not a lot of coaching, and enough question marks that pushed him down to the supplemental round – and enough that many saw the M’s selection as an overdraft. And that’s why it’s so amazing to actually see Walker now. Raw is just not the word that jumps to mind when you see him. His fastball command isn’t perfect, but he’s by no means wild. His new pitch, a cutter that he learned late last year and really showed off in spring training, simply wasn’t working – he didn’t have a feel for it. So he worked around it, and used his big breaking curve ball as a put-away pitch instead. His poise was tested by an umpire who may not have been used to a 70MPH death-dealing curve, and at least one of his two walks absolutely needs an asterisk by it. But he caught himself, refocused, and worked out of trouble.

The first thing you notice about Walker is, of course, his size. He’s tall, athletic, and his mechanics make good use of that build. While most athlete height/weight listings are…generous, Walker looked at least his 6’4″ listing. He stood next to Alex Liddi, also listed at 6’4″, for the national anthem and looked a touch bigger. The second thing you notice is that his throwing motion is easy, not violent or complicated. This may help his fastball seem a bit faster than its plenty-fast 94-97mph, and, as Jason Churchill mentioned, helps him maintain his velocity from the stretch. He started his night off with a bang – striking out Giants’ CF prospect Gary Brown out on three pitches. He gave up his first hit to the 2nd batter, however, and didn’t really show pure strikeout stuff with his fastball again.

I was curious to see how he handled lefty hitters, but they didn’t present many problems for him. No one’s confusing the Fresno Grizzlies with the 1927 Yankees, but Todd Linden’s a pretty good professional hitter, and Walker absolutely froze him with his curve ball and ended up striking him out twice. Roger Kieschnick isn’t great, but he’s a successful PCL hitter, so it’s not like Walker faced a terrible line-up. He was able to move his fastball around, get some fouls and fly balls off his cutter, and then go to the curve when ahead to righties and lefties alike.

Overall, the things I was most impressed with were:
1) His curve ball. Walker changed the grip on it this spring, but this looked more like the curve that first opened eyes in instructs several years ago. This spring, his curve averaged 76-77MPH, but on Tuesday, it was in the low 70s, and the absolute pitch of the night came in at 69. That one elicited a spontaneous giggle from me. It had clear two-plane break, and looked like it was going into the earhole of the righty batter before dropping into the strike zone. It was just one night, but the curve was an easy plus pitch. I’m just sort of surprised, given the struggles he had with it last year, and with so much talk about how his cutter was becoming his go-to breaking ball.

2) Poise. I talked about it above, but this looked like a veteran. Walker pitched around a subpar cutter and subpar umpiring without getting flustered (and he had opportunities) and without resorting to centering fastballs. He started using more fastballs and pitching up, and got some quick fly-outs in the middle innings. It didn’t help his FIP numbers, but it looked deliberate – and smart.

3) Control. He began the year walking a ton of Southern League hitters, but something clicked for him in late May, and whatever change he made continues to work. This is not a guy who throws 98 and hopes for the best.

And, just for the sake of balance, some things that weren’t perfect:
1) His control of the fastball was great, but the Grizzlies put some good swings on it. His motion is clean and efficient, but perhaps not the most deceptive. His height may give him a deeper release point, but he didn’t have too many whiffs.

2) His cutter was just off. He mentioned this in a post-game interview with Ryan Divish, but batters clearly ID’d the pitch and he wasn’t spotting it where he wanted to. It wasn’t bad – no one really pulled a ball all night, but this pitch got rave reviews in the spring and through the AA season, and at least on Tuesday, it was something of a letdown.

3) As awesome as the big, slow curve is, I wonder if MLB hitters will be able to react when the velocity differential is so huge. Again, Walker touched the high 90s, and then dropped in a curve that occasionally hit the high *60s*. It was a very good pitch, and no one in Fresno’s line-up looked prepared to punish it. But I wonder if that’ll be true in the big leagues. Stephen Pryor worked on a slow curve this spring too, and he’d have a Walker-esque velocity difference if only he was healthy and felt like throwing the pitch in game situations. Something to watch, but it feels like a nitpick given how effective the pitch was.

* I’m happy to report that Hultzen rejoined the Rainiers tonight and tossed 6 scoreless innings against Las Vegas with 6 Ks. Still, I’m a bit concerned that he may run larger platoon splits than his MiLB numbers would suggest (ala Carter Capps/Brandon Maurer), and he simply hasn’t shown the Maddux-like command that some attributed to him out of UVA. Now, a lot of this isn’t Hultzen’s fault – he’d be a great pitching prospect for anyone, but he’s held to an extremely high standard as a #2 overall pick. But in 2012 he had that bizarre lapse in command in Tacoma and in 2013 he’s been shelved with a sore shoulder. No one’s saying he’s bad, but like pretty much any GM in the game, I’d take Walker.

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Comments

18 Responses to “Taijuan Walker’s AAA Debut: Now it Can Be Told”

unkrusty on
June 30th, 2013 7:32 pm

Draft position or not, I just want Danny to stay healthy and be…I dunno…Jeff Fassero?

Westside guy on
June 30th, 2013 8:41 pm

The Rainiers have a darn awesome rotation right now…

bookbook on
June 30th, 2013 8:44 pm

Yeah.
If we can get reliable league average out of 2 of Hultzen/Erasmo/Maurer/Paxton, that’s a major win.

maqman on
July 1st, 2013 3:16 am

I’m guessing they will bring Walker up for a cup of coffee in September just as an orientation and stimulation exercise. I’m curious about them having an innings and/or pitch count on him at this point in his career.

californiamariner on
July 1st, 2013 5:22 am

I wouldn’t expect to see Walker in September for the reason you said. He should be on a pitch limit. Hopefully he does a great job the rest of the year in AAA and we see him fairly early next year.

smb on
July 1st, 2013 7:55 am

No thanks for this year…I want him to be ready to give 200 innings in our 2015 championship season! Woooooooooooooo!!!!

raul_podzednick on
July 1st, 2013 9:01 am

supplemental rounds – 3rd round seems to be Jack z’s sweet spot

G-Man on
July 1st, 2013 9:49 am

I’m on the same page as bookbook (no pun intended) – if we get 2 reliable starters out of the 4, it is a success.

terry on
July 1st, 2013 11:11 am

Justin Smoak since 8/31/2012:

.276/.375/.441 OPS=.815; wOBA=.362; PAs= 323

Not bad for the 6/7 slot in the lineup and really numbers that suggest we shouldn’t quite write him off yet…

SeattleSlew on
July 1st, 2013 12:12 pm

Over the years I have learned not to get too excited about hyped prospects (specially from the M’s), so I have only observed Taijuan from a distance but he seems legit however it would be extremely foolish for the M’s to rush him.

I would much rather have a pitcher that pitches with command than a guy that throws in the upper 90’s and hopes for good results.

SeattleSlew on
July 1st, 2013 12:14 pm

Does anyone know what his repertoire consist of besides the fastball and slow curve?

dnc on
July 1st, 2013 1:21 pm

Slew, he has a changeup that’s been described as “developing” as well as the cutter.

Looks like he picked up the cutter last year at AA Jackson, where their old PC Lance Painter taught it to tons of pitchers who came through. But many pitchers have put their own spin on it – Stephen Pryor’s looks slower, almost like a slurve. Walker’s is obviously more on the cut-fastball side of the spectrum. I suppose I’d put Andrew Carraway’s more towards the cut-fastball side of things, but it’s tougher to tell when he’s throwing it 83 off an 88 FB.

stevemotivateir on
July 1st, 2013 4:10 pm

Wonder when/if Paxton will ever string together more than two decent starts.

Longgeorge1 on
July 1st, 2013 9:05 pm

Walker just completed 5 8K’s. 1W, 3h Looked good but was at about 90 pitches in just 5. I would expect to see Hultzen and/or Rameirez sooner or later. Sooner if a move is made in Seattle. Later if they stay healthy as they both will need work after missing long periods. TW will probably be shut down before the end of August. By the way the Sky Sox had 6 lefties in their line-up

dnc on
July 2nd, 2013 6:46 am

I got to see some of the game last night, seemed like Walker was struggling to command the curve a bit, plus the SkySox best bet was to watch it go by and hope it was a ball. They couldn’t really touch him.

Not as efficient as he’ll need to be, but dominant nonetheless. For those who think Walker is getting a callup this year, I think the M’s made a pretty strong statement by not letting him start the sixth. They are more concerned about keeping him healthy than getting him ready for the bigs this season. I think that’s the right tact.

He’ll be up somewhere between April and June next year, and he’ll be very good.

raul_podzednick on
July 2nd, 2013 10:03 am

2014 rotation?

Felix
Iwakuma
Erasmo
Hultzen
Walker

Breadbaker on
July 2nd, 2013 4:08 pm

Walker is not on the current 40 man roster, so they’d have to make yet another move to bring him up in September. There’d have to be a serious upside to doing that given how crappy our 40 man moves have been all year.